Timing Belt Replacement

Why not build the water pump so that it would last the life of the engine. Don't tell me it can't be done, if they can build an engine that will run for 300,000 miles then they can build a water pump that will run that long also.

I don't think you could build a water pump that was driven using magnetic coupling for a reasonable amount of money. A water pump running at speed will require around 2 horse power.

The idea of using a vital system, that if it fails will ruin the engine, to power a device that is designed to fail and fail in such a way as to destroy that vital system is ridiculous. It's the manufacturer telling you to bend over and grab your ankles. The really bad part is that he doesn't even kiss you when he gets done.

Jack

Reply to
Retired VIP
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Mitsushitty 2.6

Too bad the rest of the engine was such a disaster.

Reply to
aarcuda69062

why not make the *entire* engine (and it's components) that way?

Seems to me that there's plenty of parts that could easily be replaced by more permanent parts (like hoses, belts etc).

We can put someone on the moon but we can't make a radiator hose that doesn't wear out?

Of course, the entire automotive repair industry would tank and dealers rely heavily on their service and parts department for revenue.

Reply to
01dyna

They do. Problem is; vehicle owners don't follow the proper maintenance intervals. Hell, they won't even use the OE recommended fluids that enable longer engine life. Don't believe me, swing over to one of the GM groups, in a short time some dufus will author a post about switching to a non approved coolant.

That's why you're supposed to maintain it.

What is likely to fail sooner, the big fat timing belt or the skinny vee belt?

Is that manufacturer holding a gun to your head?

Reply to
aarcuda69062

So, you're saying that you'd prefer a $100,000 hose that never needs replacing to a $10.00 hose that needs replacing once every 100,000 miles.

Reply to
aarcuda69062

I don't doubt that there are dealers who double dip. I got the impression, correctly, or incorrectly, that you were implying that most dealers double dip, and I responded that none of the dealers I visited did that. I specifically qualified my statement by mentioning that my experience was with the dealers I visited, not all or even most dealers. From my experience with the 50 or so dealers **I** visited and the 100 + that **I** worked with directly, there are more dealers that have honest service department than dishonest ones. My direct experience sample size was only about 8% of the Toyota dealer population at that time, and while it is not a

100% sample, it is probably larger than most of the other posters here have.

Toyota pays a lot of money for various customer surveys and studies, and one of the surveys pointed out that a customer who has a good experience with a dealer service department will generally tell 2 or 3 people about that good experience, but a customer who has a bad experience will tell 25 others about the bad experience, so the news sounds disproportionately bad. The point we made with service departments was to make sure that they made a good effort to resolve as many customer complaints as they could to avoid the spread of bad word-of-mouth experiences. With the advent of the proliferation of personal access to the internet and newsgroups, the effect of a bad experience has probably been magnified thousands of times over. For example, I don't recall over 100 posters saying that their Toyota dealer double-charged them.

Reply to
Ray O

There are a couple of catches to building something that lasts the lifetime of an engine. The first being defining "lifetime." It used to be common for cars to only last 100,000 miles without major repair expenses, and during that time, it was not uncommon to replace an alternator and water pump, spark plugs, points, condenser, rotor, distributor cap, and ignition wires every 12,000 to 24,000 miles. Most modern cars will easily go 100,000 miles without having to replace a water pump and alternator, and the spark plugs would have been replaced only once in that interval. Toyota is starting to go back to timing chains, so the periodic replacement of timing belts will start to go away.

The other catch to defining lifetime is that the lifetime of an engine is now well over 250,000 miles, so the components like a water pump, alternator, seals, etc. have to last more than twice as long as they used to. Rubber used in seals has a finite life, so that is the weak link.

Reply to
Ray O

Your previous response was limited to a very specific situation, which was not exactly what we were discussing.

Here is your exact quote from a previous post:

"As for the 50 or so Toyota dealers I've [Ray O] visited, none charged extra labor for accessory drive belt replacement when changing the timing belt."

I am sure you are correct about that, but the subject was a timing belt change and a water pump change done at the same time (not a timing belt change and accessory drive belt change). Based on numerous comments in this newsgroup, the majority (if not all) dealers will not "quote" a labor price break if these are done together.

Reply to
Mark A

Yup, that post was in response to the paragraph that proceeded it.

I guess this is another one of those situations where we'll have to agree to disagree.

Reply to
Ray O

Well that, and the manufacturer's sales are, or at least they think they are, **extremely** sensitive to consumer purchase price (which affects their profit margin) which is driven to a large degree by the initial manufacturing cost. They are run by MBA's.

Bill Putney (To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my address with the letter 'x')

Reply to
Bill Putney

In most cases I would agree with you, but if by "approved coolant" you mean DexCool?/Prestone Extended Life?, I wouldn't use that in my lawnmower - well that is, if my lawnmower were water cooled. I don't even use DexCool in my wife's Buick - that stuff is garbage.

Let's face it - the zero sulfates was a huge mistake. Zerex, Ford, and Chrysler got it right with G-05 (and I suspect Prestone's "All Makes All Models" is a reverse-engineered version of that to get people away from DexCool? and save face - I guaranteed they wouldn't make that awful mistake again).

Bill Putney (To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my address with the letter 'x')

Reply to
Bill Putney

Building a pump that never fails isn't so easy. It's a wear item with seals. They could build a pump where the seals could be changed more easily, but the labor cost would outweigh the savings.

There are several wear items in a car that if they fail the engine will be ruined. When a water pump fails it starts by leaking. If enough coolant is lost then the engine will begin to overheat. If the owner does nothing about either of these then the engine is damaged. What's needed on vehicles, and I'm not being facetious, is an audible and visual warning system that clearly tells the driver "Stop Now or Your Engine will Be Destroyed." Aluminum blocks cannot tolerate overheating like iron blocks could.

Reply to
SMS

You are right in that everything has a finite life, but......

Seals used on the crankshaft, valves stems, etc last quite a while under more extreme conditions, maybe 300,000 miles. So why can't water pump seals? Bearings used throughout the engines last, for the most part, 300,000 miles, why can't water pump bearings? In short, there isn't anything about water pumps that will cause them to fail that isn't also true of an engine.

Generally speaking, a simpler design means less to fail and longer life. A good example would be turbofan jet engines used on today's airplanes. A bunch of fans mounted on a shaft that will last somewhere around 25 times longer than the radial piston engines that they replaced. A water pump consists of a pulley attached to a shaft mounted in a bearing with an impeller mounted on it. You can't get much simpler than that.

If you want to quibble about "lifetime" then you could define it as the point where 50% of the properly maintained engines would require repairs that would cost more than replacing the engine. My guess would be somewhere around 250,000 to 300,000 miles.

What I"I'm saying is that there is no technical reason why automotive water pumps couldn't be built that were more dependable than the engines they're mounted on.

Jack

Reply to
Retired VIP

You're comparing apples and oranges. Surely they could get the cost down to $500 each with mass production! :)

Bill Putney (To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my address with the letter 'x')

Reply to
Bill Putney

I recently had a conversation with semi-distant relative who works in hospitality management, and he was telling me that in the hotel business, one of the problems they have is that once the negative stats and customer ratings show up on the internet, they are there forever. IOW - it's impossible to undo the damage by fixing the problems. If that's the case, I would think the only way to fix it is to change the name or sell it to a different owner (which would also change the name)

- might explain a lot of the turnover in hotel ownership that you see from one chain to another?

Bill Putney (To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my address with the letter 'x')

Reply to
Bill Putney

I have to ask if the trend will remain to have the water pump highly integrated into the front of the engine and driven by whatever drives the cam? If so, then it would be a shame to have so much of the potential savings (not having to replace the belt at $300 to $700 a crack) on the otherwise simple inevitable occasional water pump replacement negate that potential savings (of not having to go into the front of the engine to that depth).

I find it interesting that the manufacturers appear to be able to routinely design and manufacture a water pump to last significantly longer in applications where it is highly integrated (i.e., driven by t-belt/chain) than when it is hanging out in relatively easily accessible space (like a more traditional - i.e., non-timing belt/chain driven - pump). I understand the economic and customer perception reasons why, but it shows that they could make a better, much longer-lasting traditional pump (if they wanted to).

Bill Putney (To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my address with the letter 'x')

Reply to
Bill Putney

There are ways of solving those problems other than selling. I can't remember what nationally known company it was or the issue involved within the past year. Might've involved a food recall. But it was all over the news about how they handled it beautifully by being completely open & honest from day one.

We saw this happen locally in 2006 when a place called the Dinosaur Barbecue (Syracuse NY) was connected with a rash of norovirus illnesses. The owner instructed his managers and the county health department to withhold absolutely NO information about the restaurant or the investigation. He closed the place for the weekend, threw out all the prepared food (even though it probably wasn't the cause), and scrubbed down the whole place under health department supervision. When they reopened on Monday, the place was mobbed. Customers were interviewed on the TV news. Their comments fell into two categories: We see them cleaning constantly when we're here. And, things happen, but they didn't hide anything.

That's how it should be done.

Reply to
JoeSpareBedroom

It was a voluntary beef recall last summer. Remember the name of the company? I don't. It was on the evening news for a couple of days and then the story vanished.

They did the right thing, and it paid off.

Reply to
Hachiroku

I also remember hearing a news story a couple of months ago about companies that are in business to, for a fee, clean up companies' public images by erasing the normal negative hits that popular search engines (like Google) would come up with using likely key words having to do with your business. Sounds like the equivalent in the business world to credit bureaus in the consumer world. I wouldn't be surprised if the same entities who - for a fee - will clean things up aren't the same ones that help create the negative information in the first place, just operating under a different name. Possibly with the search engine companies themselves capitalizing on both ends of the situation.

Bill Putney (To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my address with the letter 'x')

Reply to
Bill Putney

I keep a careful eye on the temp guage. And the Oil. P guage (like it said in my '80 SR5) if so equipped.

Reply to
Hachiroku

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